---
title: The Readiness is All
description: I am eager to get working on my defects but my Higher Power is telling me to hold my horses until He gives the command.
image: https://blog.theretreat.org/hubfs/Man-in-boat.jpg
---

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# [The Readiness is All](https://blog.theretreat.org/the-readiness-is-all)

 \[fa icon="calendar"\] May 11, 2016 10:00:00 AM / by [Dick Rice](https://blog.theretreat.org/author/dick-rice)

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![Man-in-boat.jpg](https://blog.theretreat.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Man-in-boat.jpg?width=711&name=Man-in-boat.jpg "Man-in-boat.jpg")I have been amazed at how many of us come forth from a good 5th step and immediately say, **“I sure have a lot to work on.”** We climb to the sixth step and realize that we have nothing to work on, unless [our Higher Power](https://blog.theretreat.org/keeping-conscious-contact-with-your-higher-power) indicates such to us.  The 6th  step is counter-intuitive.  **I am eager to get working on my defects but my Higher Power is telling me to hold my horses until He gives the command**,  pointing out which shortcoming He wants to lengthen and what he wants from me. 

 At the same time, I agree with the clergy person quoted in [12 & 12](https://blog.theretreat.org/focusing-on-what-works-12-steps-of-aa-abstinence) who states that this is the step that separates the adults from the kids in terms of recovery. I do not graduate with a good step five but neither should I throw myself headlong into a self-improvement project.  **I just have to be ready and willing for God to work with me**, keeping myself  “thawed out,” as I like to say, and not placing myself back in the deep freeze of repressed thoughts and feelings and resulting inactivity. 

Steps 6 and 7 get only two short paragraphs in the Big Book, yet I have grown more from climbing those steps than from all the rest.  God typically points out one short-coming that is my “growing edge.”  In that very pointing-out, **God usually gives me the courage to change and the grace to do it. **

Climb the sixth and seventh steps carefully.  You owe it to yourself and to your recovery. 

  

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 Topics: [Alcoholics Anonymous](https://blog.theretreat.org/topic/alcoholics-anonymous), [alcoholism](https://blog.theretreat.org/topic/alcoholism), [12 steps of aa](https://blog.theretreat.org/topic/12-steps-of-aa), [Drugs Adiction](https://blog.theretreat.org/topic/drugs-adiction), [Chemical Dependency](https://blog.theretreat.org/topic/chemical-dependency)

![Dick Rice](https://blog.theretreat.org/hs-fs/hubfs/images/DickRiceProfile.png?width=100&height=100&name=DickRiceProfile.png)

#### Written by [Dick Rice](https://blog.theretreat.org/author/dick-rice)

Spiritual Development Advisor.

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